A federal election is coming in just four weeks. That means you’ll still have time to think about voting after your exams are over. If young people actually come out this election and vote at the same rate of the rest of the population it will have a huge, unpredicted impact on the outcome of the election. There is a lot at stake this election that should be important to young people. The current government has been fundamentally disrespecting the democratic institutions of our country and has made a lot of policy choices that young people need to think about in terms of their long term benefit.

One of the most exciting things happening this election is a new movement called Lead Now. They are gathering opinions from the people of Canada about what is important to them and they’ve come up with four broad types of issues that are important to Canadians: Health, Environment, Economic Opportunity and Equality and, wait for it, Democracy.

If you agree with these topics, or even if you don’t, you owe it to yourself to stand up and be heard this election. They aren’t expecting young to vote so your opinions are not part of the predictions or something the party leaders worry about. So UBC needs to make a loud statement that this is a place that cares about democracy and this election, young people are going to do the unexpected and vote. We need to have a vote mob.

And Just to get you riled up to here are two videos. Rick Mercer’s call out to young people to vote. And the University of Victoria’s (WHAAAA????) awesome video for THEIR vote mob. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think we can let them have a more awesome vote mob than us (hint: it’s easy to beat nothing)

Its that time of year again, the kids are buying their supplies, the buses are filling up, the lectures are starting, the private jets are being booked and painted…that’s right, its time for another federal election! What did you think I was talking about, yes school is starting too I suppose.

UBC is starting to fire up and soon it will be swarming with young people excited about learning … 🙂 Statistically they will probably be even less excited about a federal election. Many young people are disconnected and cynical about our democracy. This is understandable given the very disappointing result of the last BC election. I don’t mean the party result, I’ll stay neutral about that, I mean the BC-STV referendum result. Young people overwhelmingly supported switching BC’s electoral system to a proportional one that would have more fairly represented the wishes of the electorate. Unfortunately, their parents believed the fear mongering and voted it down giving only 40% support when 60% was needed.

It’s easy to become depressed about changing the world when you can’t even make a sensible change to your own province. There has been lots of discussion of what went wrong with that campaign but the truth is, in one sense, it doesn’t matter why it failed. We need to keep trying to change our democracy, to improve it, to move it into the 21st century where we, all of us at UBC especially, will spend the bulk of our lives. We live in a 21st century democracy with a 19th Century electoral process. There are many ways it can be fixed, and all of us who want change need to work together for some change regardless of the details. Any progress is progress.

So this year at UBC, we at the FairVoteUBC club will be asking you to put aside apathy and cynicism about democracy. About politics sure, but not democracy. We’ll likely be having a federal election before we even have our first term exams. Then in the the spring we’ll have a campus election. Last year we used a proportional system for the first time on campus, Condorcet ranked voting. Will we do so again this year, can we do even better? Can we use an STV style system to show everyone that we were not happy with the referendum result? Can we send a louder message to Vancouver, to Victoria, to Ottawa? Can we demand that the politicians who will be coming to woo us on this campus make electoral reform a top priority?

We need your help to find out. We need your ideas. We need your energy. Let us know if you’ll join us (face/twit). And we’ll let you know where to find us on campus soon.

Below is an email about the BC-STV referendum by Craig Henschel, a Citizens’ Assembly Alumnus that I have worked with and think very highly of.

Also, here is an absolutely excellent 6.5min video by Christie Clark about why she supports STV now that she is no longer a politician. —
-Bruce

Apologies for the spamishness of this e-mail. Please pass this on to your address book by Bcc.

Hi,

As you know, there will be a Provincial Referendum on Tuesday May 12th to determine which electoral system we will use in future provincial elections, First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) or the Single Transferable Vote (BC-STV) as recommended by the BC Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.

You may recall that I was a member of the Citizens’ Assembly. I’m sending you this e-mail so that you will make a more informed choice on May 12th. I’m also hoping that you might forward this e-mail on to your friends. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey there. One more day to go. Tomorrow is the big vote and we’ll see if the forces of reason win out over the forces of fear and lack of information (its a weak force 🙂 )

Take a look at the events map, there are some people planning to cover skytrains in vancouver and maybe bridges too so that no one can get home tonight without having to think about BC-STV again, at least for a second.

If you haven’t already, take a look at this video from Christy Clark, former Deputy Premier of BC and current host on CKNW. Be sure to rate it with five stars and leave a comment. This has drawn some attention and some people think it may be turning the tide in our favour. We’ll see tomorrow night.

Two fantastic articles/posts in the last 24hours from influential people in the media that you should read before you go to bed tonight, you’ll rest a bit better knowing there is reason and sanity in the world. Then get out there and spread the word for a few days more.

I think the online buzz and opinion making for BC-STV is pretty solid at this point. Letters are flooding onto websites of newspapers and blogs and twitter is all, well, a-twitter about the benefits of BC-STV. Of course, the internet doesn’t get a vote and you can’t send in your ballot via twitter (yet) and there are some people out there not buzzing around online talking about the election. Actually, most people aren’t. This weekend most people will be shopping, attending conventions, street festivals and hockey games.

So we need to be there.

We need to get out of cyberspace and get into meatspace and talk to people using modulated soundwaves in the air. We need to ask them to consider this important choice, offer them pamphlets to read more, tell them about the website to find videos and just plain-old answer their questions and assuage their fears, because there is nothing to be scared of except staying with FPTP forever.

So this is a call to everyone online, to go offline at some point in the next 4 days and connect with some real, physical people. If everyone one of us online can convince 10 people and raise awareness of 100 people we might be able to actually do this thing. Of course, we’ll use the internet to organize that 😉

Map : Here’s a map with the locations of some of BC-STV events that need volunteers or where people plan to be talking to pedestrians. It will grow in the next few days, so far its just vancouver, but anyone in BC can use it. If you have a gmail account you can edit it yourself and add your plans. Maybe people will show up to help.

FairVoteUBC is kicking off our election coverage today of the 2009 Alma Mater Society election. Our goal is to provide some insight and analysis into the candidates’ views with respect to the important issues of student representation, influence and voice. The voice of students must be heard on campus, across the province and even across the country. Read the rest of this entry »